


Colorful Actions

by Imrryr



Category: Captain Marvel (2019)
Genre: F/F, Fluff, IN SPACE!, Some Mentions of Period-Typical Homophobia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-31
Updated: 2019-03-31
Packaged: 2019-12-30 03:10:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,175
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18306995
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Imrryr/pseuds/Imrryr
Summary: Carol always used to go on long drives to clear her head.  There was nothing like picking a random desert road and seeing where it took you.  But after becoming a real-life superhero, the sky was suddenly no longer the limit.  Carol x Maria, near the end of the film.





	Colorful Actions

**Author's Note:**

> I’ve only seen the movie once, and what I don’t know about the rest of the MCU could fill a warehouse. I apologize for any errors. *shrug emoji*

Carol cringed at the squeak the hood gave as she opened it, a sharp noise that silenced the crickets all around her.  Honestly, she should’ve been relieved that a colony of bats hadn’t come flying out of the engine block or something. 

Disconnected hoses, clumps of dark things she really hoped were only dirt - funny how this was what really brought home how much time had passed.  Life had gone on without her, sure, but her car had remained untouched like a memorial in a forgotten cemetery.  Her fingers came back caked in six years’ worth of neglect.  

She let out a long, tired breath.  Compared to the technology she’d fought with under the Kree, a Ford 428 was a child’s toy, but it would take a lot more than a single night before she'd hear this thing roar again like it had in her memories.

“Late night maintenance?”

She nodded, making room for Maria to join in her ineffectual glowering.  Maria hung back, watching in silence for some time before glancing over her shoulder at the dim yellow bulb mounted outside the garage.  “How can you even see with that dinky little light?”

For maximum effect, Carol turned slowly, a faint smile on her lips as she caught the flash of yellow reflected in Maria’s eyes.  “I have my ways.”

Maria crossed her arms.  Barely twenty-four hours in, and she was already immune to the super-powers.  Honestly, Carol was kind of glad for it.  “Not sure if I’m supposed to be impressed or terrified.”

Instead of the snappy comeback she was probably expecting, Carol went back to brooding over the engine block.  “Terrified,” she said eventually, “if you were this car.”

“Uh huh,” she began, leaning forward.  “Can’t you just use your magic to fix it?”

“No…” she frowned, “Well, maybe I could get it to _run_ \- I guess - but it looks like there's no oil.”  No matter how grumpy she was feeling, she'd never mistreat her car like that.  She patted the fender.

Maria rolled her eyes at the sight.  “Yeah… I noticed the leak last month.  Been meaning to take care of it, but –“

“Don’t apologize,” Carol interrupted, tightening the oil cap.  “Plenty of more important things to worry about.  Family for one.” 

She felt a warm hand on her shoulder.  “Yeah.”  Maria left it there until Carol met her gaze, thumb brushing along the deceptively soft fabric of her uniform.  _Family_.  Yeah.   Maybe her memory wasn’t perfect yet, but she remembered that quite vividly.  “But if I’d known you were alive..."

“Yeah," she said, knowing what Maria was getting at, "me too.”  Carol would’ve come back, she would’ve fought through an army of Kree if she'd had an inkling of what had been so cruelly stripped away from her.

Which led to the big question: why hadn’t she known?  Yes, her memories had been taken away, and that wasn't her fault, but why had it been so easy to settle into that new life?

Ugh.  She wanted to just take off… not think about this stuff for a few hours at least.  Just lose herself in the act of driving.  Louisiana didn’t exactly have the wide-open roads of Nevada, but she wasn’t feeling picky tonight.

Any road would do.

Anything to clear her head.

Annoyed, Carol went back to providing her free-admission master class in brooding until her concentration was broken when the hood squeaked again.  “Watch your hands,” Maria said, giving her just enough time to step back before unceremoniously slamming the hood shut.

“Um… what are you doing?”

Without another word, Maria slid onto the hood, pushing herself up until she was lying against the windshield.  Once comfortable, she crossed her arms and gave Carol that familiar look of challenge she was sure she'd seen a thousand times before.  “Maybe it’s time you took a night off, Captain.”

“I like to keep busy,” she mumbled, wringing her hands.

“Yeah, and like I’ve always said, you’re a pain in my ass.  So come on,” she added, patting the hood.  “Humor me.”

It would be pointless to argue with that face.  If she'd ever managed it in her previous life, Carol sure as hell didn't know how.  After gamely attempting to brush the dirt off her hands, she finally acquiesced. 

...

The stars shone through the patchy clouds.  Her eyes wandered before long, following the flashing beacons of planes much closer to Earth, watching as they subtly altered course by a few degrees, always in the same spot in the sky.  She wondered idly if there was a VOR station nearby.

Yeah, she really wasn't good at this stargazing stuff.

Fortunately, Maria didn't seem to notice.  “Remember when we used to do this on base?” she asked.

Carol scratched the back of her head.  She did… sort of.   The old memories were coming back - a little at a time, true, but likely that was for the best.  In the course of a week she’d gone from loyal servant of the Kree, to their mortal enemy - and had some impressive powers thrown in for good measure.  It was a lot to ponder, even for a superhero.

Everything was still a bit of a jumble, but the big stuff - Maria, and Monica, and their life together - she remembered that.  The photo albums helped, but mostly it was Monica.  She had happily relayed every single memory she had of 'Aunt' Carol, and several stories her mom must've told her, most of which were highly embarrassing.

As for everything else... well, it was spotty, but there was a nagging feeling that even back on Earth she’d always been the kind of person who busied herself to clear her head; hence the sudden determination to get her old Mustang running again at three in the morning.

Stargazing just didn't come naturally to her.  It probably never had.

She caught herself absently tapping the hood and clasped her hands over her chest to calm them.

If this were Hala, she’d  be training right now.  That had been her life: always preparing for the next conflict, always pushing herself harder.  And maybe it had been like that for a reason.  No time to think about what you really wanted out of life if you were constantly in motion.

Not unlike her academy days, to be completely honest.

So, what _did_ Carol want? 

The stars twinkled down on her impassively.

Yeah, she thought.  Definitely no clue there.

She knew what she _had_ to do, what the Kree were forcing her to do.  But there had to be more to life than that, surely.  And if she won, what came next?

“I, uh, do vaguely remember some bad karaoke,” Carol admitted after a while.

Maria nodded at the memory.  “Yeah, there was that.  But sometimes when one of us wasn’t feeling it, we’d just sit like this, watching the stars and trying to guess what was taking off from the airfield by the roar of the engine.”

Yon-Rogg would’ve had plenty to say if he caught her doing anything like that.   Carol hummed, head lolling to the side.  “If you say so.”  Honestly, that did make her feel a little better, knowing that he'd be angry at her for this, not that he wasn't angry enough already, but still-

Maria was looking at her strangely.  Carol kind of wanted to ask just how much Maria thought she'd changed since last seeing her alive, but the answer… well, she wasn’t sure what would be worse: that living among the Kree _had_ changed her, or that she was exactly the same, and she’d joined a brutal intergalactic empire because she was just _that_ easily manipulated.

Still, this part definitely felt right; watching Maria.  If nothing else was certain, she knew she did plenty of that in her previous life.

Six years hadn't changed that one bit.

“Stars are up there, Captain.”

“Yes, ma’am,” she said, smiling to herself.  “Thanks for keeping it safe, by the way,” she added softly after a bit, patting the hood.  It had been six years since she’d seen her, or it had been six days - six years for Maria, six days for Carol.  She couldn’t begin to imagine what it must’ve been like for her.

Stronger than steel, that was Maria.

And meanwhile, Carol had been on Hala; completely oblivious to what she’d lost.

If only she had known… somehow.

She sighed.  A hell of a lot of stargazing would be required before she could even begin to work her way through that.  Or maybe she should try punching some Kree soldiers, or blowing up a few more of their ships.

That'd feel pretty damn satisfying.

Maria was humming softly to herself, hands clasped behind her head, “Never could get rid of anything that reminded me of you.”

She blushed.  It was strange to think, but everything about her life on Hala had felt so natural.  After losing her memory, she’d slipped into a new routine there so easily, never questioning what she’d been told, never even considering that she belonged somewhere else.  Cities that spanned continents.  Armies constantly marching through the streets.  Skies filled with transports day and night, preparing to make war on a thousand distant worlds.  Millions of soldiers always on the move…

Never a moment of peace.

Now she had all the peace she could ever want, and all the time to ponder.

Part of her wanted to fight something right now, but in Maria's eyes she saw no expectations, no orders... just contentment.

Damn but Earth was nothing like Hala.

“But next time,” Maria continued, nodding at the open garage and the indentations in the grass from where Carol had pushed the car into position, “you can just ask for the keys.”

Carol laughed.  “I’ll keep that in mind.”  Finally sitting up, her brow furrowed as she rubbed the back of her neck and felt the sweat pooling there.  “You know, I think I must’ve preferred the desert.  This humidity is killing me.”

“Would take a lot of humidity to actually kill you, I’d imagine.”

Well, _yeah_ , she thought, amused.  Even Carol herself couldn’t believe the things she’d done in the past twenty-four hours.  It had all just sort of happened.  It was instinctual, like pulling a jet fighter out of a stall.

“And you did prefer the desert, by the way.  You might’ve been born in New England, but the west was in your soul.  Hot dry air, cloudless skies, and long empty roads.”

“I’ll have to take your word for that,” she frowned.

“Don’t remember?”

Carol shook her head.  “Not really.  Not yet, anyway.”  She did remember riding down a desert highway in this very car, laughing as the wind blew through her hair, engine roaring, and Maria in the passenger seat, singing along to some old song on the radio –

It was all a bit of a blur, to be honest, but it was a pleasant blur.  Again, nothing at all like her memories of Hala.

It was good.  But she remembered the fear too; the fear that other people would find out, that she'd be discharged, that even worse might happen to Maria and her daughter.

Earth was home, but it wasn’t perfect.  She'd seen enough in the past few days to be sure of that.

Great.  More things to ponder…

“Hope it comes back to you, then.”

“Me too,” she sighed.

Things were only growing quieter.  Even the most exciting day of her life couldn’t keep Monica from eventually crash on the couch, and there hadn't been a peep out of the Skrull either, though Carol wasn’t sure if they actually slept.  She should probably ask sometime.  Kree military training put little emphasis on species knowledge that didn’t focus on their strengths and weaknesses in combat.

Helping to guide them to their new homeworld would give her plenty of time to learn, she supposed.

But that was for another day.  At the moment, there was nothing out here but crickets and the faint sounds of jets high overhead.  There was absolutely nowhere else she had to be at this moment.  It brought back memories of being a kid, dreaming of traveling between the stars.

The quiet engulfed them, and it was some time before Carol broke the silence.  “Thought you would’ve seen enough of the stars for one day.”

Maria let a long, pleased groan as she stretched.  “Can’t imagine that ever happening.  Certainly not after what I saw today."

"Yeah," she had to admit.  "That was something."

"Never thought you might be up there somewhere," Maria added, gesturing at the stars.  "Can we see Hala from here?”

Carol shook her head.  “No.  It's in another galaxy.”  Earth had always been a backwater to the Kree, she couldn't remember exactly how far away Hala was, or where it might be in the sky.  Her suit had all that information.

“I see.  Still, _now_ you can go to space whenever you want.   NASA’s gonna feel really stupid for not selecting you for astronaut training.”

Hanging low, just above the trees, was a crescent moon.  How many times had she imagined herself going there, maybe becoming the first woman to leave her mark on its surface?  As a kid, people laughed at her for it.  Even in her twenties, after Sally Ride and gone up in the space shuttle, people were still telling her it would never happen.  You just couldn’t have men and women on a mission together for so long…”

Yeah, it sounded even stupider now than it had back then.

“You’ve been strangely quiet since we got back.”

Carol nodded, finding Maria watching her intently, concern in her eyes.  “There’s too much to think about.  More than I’m used to.”

“You’re such a jock,” she said, pushing Carol’s shoulder until she got a laugh out of her.  “But I get it.  Life’s a lot different when you don’t have people telling you how to think.” 

She hummed.  “Used to feel like a hero when I was with PEGASUS… serving my country, advancing science –“  Maria's brow furrowed as Carol went on.  “The thing is… it felt the same way when I was serving the Kree.”

That was the worrying part: just how similar those feelings had been.

"Now I get back and I see what's happened since I left and -"

“Told you not to look at that newspaper.” Maria interrupted.

“Yeah…”

War, terrorism, genocide - and not even fifty years after World War II.  Sometimes she wondered what the hell planet this really was.  How could it all happen again?  How could people just stand by and do nothing?  “I thought a drive might clear my head,” she admitted.

“Uh…  You can _fly_ now, you know that, right?”

“A drive with _you_ ,” Carol corrected.  “Just the two of us, the open road, and the radio.  Like old times.”

Lazily, Maria pushed herself up, brightening a bit.  “Well, I’ve still got _my_ car.  We'll have to clear the toys out of the passenger seat.  Can’t take you to the stars, but -”  All of a sudden, Carol sat up, eyes wide.  Maria observed this warily.  “Carol?”

A wicked grin crossed her lips.

“Oh, I know that look.  What are you thinking?”

A few taps on the suit’s panel brought it fully to life, helmet covering her head as she slid off the hood.  She offered a hand.  “If I were to ask you to go somewhere with me tonight, what would you say?

Maria rallied quickly.  "I’d say, ‘Carol, it’s like four in the morning.’”

“I’ll have you back before sunrise.”

“Heard that one before, you know.” 

She tapped the side of her head, helmet materializing into place.  “Have to take your word on that, remember?”

“Uh huh.  I’d also say that since we’d have to take _my_ car, that means _I’m_ driving.”

“Not going by car.”

Maria tilted her head, intrigued.  She slid off the hood.  “You’re not suggesting what I think you’re suggesting, are you?”

“Is it the kind of suggestion you would expect me to make?” Carol asked.

She shut her eyes and laughed.  “Yeah… yeah, it is.”  Carol shivered when Maria unexpectedly brushed a hand over her exposed hair.  “You know, I do like the mohawk look, by the way.”  The strands of blonde hair flared red as the hand passed through them.  “Very… um… distinctive.”

“Thanks,” she mumbled, scratching the back of her neck and immediately feeling stupid for doing so since her neck was currently encased in impenetrable neutronium armor.

“No way that’s Kree standard design.”

She blushed even harder.

“I bet you picked up all sorts of aliens with this look.”  When Carol looked away, Maria gently nudged her chin until they were face to face again.  “Hey.  I told you, that doesn’t bother me… whatever you did up there, it wasn’t your fault.  Don’t you dare apologize for the things you did after your memory was stolen.  Okay?”

She blinked, words failing to come for a long moment.  “Yes, ma’am.”

"Good."  One of the things that first attracted Carol to her was Maria’s ability to cut right through the bullshit like an F-16 through the sound barrier.  It was a gift.  “So, where exactly are we going?”

She smiled, feeling a little of that old confidence returning.  “Well,” she drawled, peering up at the sky until Maria followed her gaze.  “I was thinking you’ll need to hang on.”

When she caught exactly what Carol was staring it, Maria shook her head.  “You’re serious?”

“Why not?”

“Are we swinging by Cape Canaveral to pick up a space suit for my non-superpowered ass?”

Eyebrow raising, Carol leaned briefly to the side to check her out.  “Your ass looks fine to me.”

Laughing, Maria tried to shove her, but Carol caught her hand easily.  Her eyes widened at the glow that began suffusing first Carol’s hand, then her own.  After a few more seconds, that faint light surrounded them both in a nearly impenetrable field, flickering like a raging fire.

The Kree designed these suits with emergency modes to help evacuate wounded warriors and keep them alive in hostile alien environments, but with some modifications – she tapped a few more commands - well, it would hardly be the first time she’d used the expensive military hardware entrusted to her care in order to impress a pretty girl.

Maria’s breath hitched as warm pressurized air filled the bubble between them.  You couldn’t see it, but she’d be glad it was there once they passed fifteen-thousand feet.  Fresh, oxygenated air.   It had the added benefit of being a hell of a lot dryer than this awful Louisiana summer.

“Trust me?”

Before she could reply, both women’s feet left the ground.  “Well, Captain Danvers,” Maria began, arms wrapping around her waist.  “You always did know how to sweep a girl off her feet.”

…

Though she hardly needed to, Maria kept a tight hold as the Earth’s atmosphere rushed by, growing thinner and thinner until they ascended into the deep black of space.

Carol wasn’t about to complain.

They hung there for a little while, looking down on the lights of New Orleans; the Mississippi tracing a lazy pitch-black line through the distant city lights.  Clouds hung over Texas, promising rain.  It was impossibly quiet.  Nothing like being inside a jet... even one modified for interplanetary travel.  In their shared bubble, nothing could be heard except their breathing, and Maria’s sigh of pleasure.  "Damn," was all she could say.

' _Damn, indeed_ ,' Carol thought.  But she wasn't looking at the Earth.

Finally, they turned and shot off rapidly towards the Moon.

It took minutes to cross a distance that mankind had last covered in three days. 

Maria remained completely overwhelmed as the Moon approached, mouth dropping open as its dark seas and bright highlands filled up the sky, stretching out from horizon to horizon; no longer a flat looking disk but a true world – a place just as accessible as the next crossroad.  

They glided along, a few feet above a wide flat plain randomly pocketed with ancient, eroded craters.   Barren, featureless… one might’ve called it magnificent desolation.  She was pretty sure someone had.

“Recognize this place?” Carol asked.

“Um…" she swallowed, and if Carol hadn't needed to stay close in order to keep Maria alive, she might've done a victory lap around the Moon.  She'd actually managed to impress her for once.

Maria coughed.  "Well, it’s the moon, just about two-hundred thousand miles closer.  Give or take a few feet.”  Her attempts to sound nonchalant wouldn't have fooled anyone, least of all Carol.

“No, I mean, this specific place.”

She squinted, but shook her head.  “Can’t say that I do.”

“The Sea of Tranquility.  Look,” Carol gestured to a dark, rapidly approaching object sitting on four metal legs.  Parts of it were covered in gold foil which glittered brightly in the unfiltered sun of lunar morning.

Maria had to shield her eyes.  “ _Damn_ ," she said again. 

Damn, indeed.

Finally, they swooped up and settled gently on the remains of Eagle itself, the descent module left behind when Armstrong and Aldrin shot back into space for the return trip to Earth.  Untouched by humanity for nearly thirty years.  Footprints radiated in east, west, and south.  The old scientific experiments were right where they'd be sitting since 1969.

"Ought to be careful, you know," Maria said, breathless.  "You might exhaust all your date ideas pretty quickly at this rate,” she blinked, turning to look into Carol’s eyes.

She thought Maria might be trying to see just how much she remembered.  “Trillions of worlds left to visit,” Carol whispered, leaning closer.  “Trust me.”

Finally able to fully enjoy the view, Maria immediately regretted looking over her shoulder to where the sun was bearing down on them.  “Shit,” she said, shielding her eyes, “I think I can understand why spacesuits have visors.”

Quickly, Carol entered a few more commands and the field flared briefly, subtly tamping down on the harsh brightness of the lunar day.  “Sorry.”

Maria only squeezed her hand.  “Care to explain how I’m not simultaneously suffocating, freeze-drying, and burning to death?”

“The simple answer?  My powers form a protective bubble of sorts, and the suit provides the oxygen.”  Kree operations required landing on all sorts of worlds, so there were protection measures against every conceivable hazard: poisons in the air, radiation, even micrometeorite impacts.  When she fought off the Kree invasion, she found that all of those countermeasures could be enhanced with her powers.

What exactly the limits were, she had no idea.  But, she supposed, that’s why test-pilots existed.

“Ah, of course.  Remind me to write a letter to NASA.  They could save millions if they just kept you around to hold to astronauts’ hands.”

“Only if that astronaut is you.”

Maria snorted.  She'd always been immune to Carol's cheesy lines.

“You _can_ let go by the way.  I promise you won’t die.  As long I’m here you’ll be fine.”  Carol cringed a little at how soppy that sounded.

Maria, at least, didn't laugh at that one.  “I bet.  But, nah,” she smiled, “It’s cool.”  In spite of their relative strengths, Carol let Maria pull her along as she gingerly stepped towards the edge.  Though originally constructed to be as light as possible, the Eagle remained sturdy under their weight.  “Besides, being with you isn’t any more dangerous than sitting in a front of a jet engine with seven-thousand pounds of fuel… _and_ a full complement of missiles…” a beat, “and bombs.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Carol laughed.  “I get it.”

At the edge of the short ramp, Maria stared longingly at a simple ladder that ran down one of module’s legs - and at the very bottom, rather eroded from the vibrations of liftoff, were the first steps any human beings had ever taken on another world.

“So… want to make your mark?” Carol asked.

She let out a long breath.  “It's funny.  I remember watching the landing with my mom, on a dinky TV-set in our tiny little shotgun shack.  It all felt so far away.”  She met Carol’s gaze, “I knew I wanted to fly like Neil Armstrong… just never really imagined I’d ever get to stand here."  She paused.  "Yet here I am.  Thanks to you.”

Funny.  Without Maria, Carol wouldn’t be here either.  She'd likely be dead, or back with the Kree.

“It’s like looking on ancient history," Maria continued, "like those old fossilized footprints of the dinosaurs.”  Tentatively, her hand hovered over the guardrail, then she glanced over her shoulder.

“It’s fine,” Carol said.  “It won’t burn you.”  In direct sunlight, the surface of the moon could easily surpass two-hundred degrees Fahrenheit.  It was a valid concern.

“That a side-effect of your power bubble?”

Carol shrugged.

“Right.  I should be worried, shouldn’t I?  You don’t even know how all this works.”  Finally, with some lingering hesitation, she placed her hand on its metal surface.  It did not in fact burn her hand.

Carol tried not to look relieved.  “At this point, I can’t even begin to list the things I don’t understand,” she mused.

“So… becoming a superhero has finally taught you humility?”

“Just a little,” she admitted, smiling to herself.  There were standing on the Moon without proper spacesuits after all.  “But I’ll just keep winging it regardless.”

“Ha.  Some things never do change.”  Finally, Maria backed away.  “I really shouldn’t.  This’ll be an historic site one day.”

Carol stepped closer to the edge.  The flag was out there too, lying overturned in the dirt several yards away and partially covered in dust.  Its bright colors had long since faded to white.  There was probably some symbolism there, but she’d never been good at that sort of thing.

“Neil and Buzz got here first,” Maria continued.  “I’m fine with that.”

“Got nothing to prove?”

Maria pulled her down until they were sitting on the edge of the Eagle overlooking the plain.  Above them hung the Earth – motionless in the black sky - the sun rising over the Azores and the east coast of Brazil.  “Not a thing.”

“Cool.”

Maria was looking at her.

“What?”

“Have I mentioned I like the mohawk?”

She nodded dumbly.

“Good.”

Then they were kissing, and Carol's breath hitched as the field around them flared into vibrant color, licking flames shooting high into the airless sky.

She took a hold of Maria’s hands, gently prying them off.  “We should…” she breathed as her eyes adjusted, though she could still see her glowing iris’s reflected in Maria’s own.  “We should probably take it slow.”

“Yeah,” Maria swallowed, “Don’t want you to explode or something.  I don’t think I can walk back home from here.”

Carol rolled her eyes, looking away until Maria began rubbing her shoulder.  “But…” she began, “later then?”

Maria cracked a smile.  “ _Maybe_.  Sometime when you’re not the only thing keeping me from explosive decompression.”

“Right,” she breathed.  “I’ll hold you to that.”

 Their feet dangled over Eagle's side as they sat shoulder to shoulder.  “So," Maria drawled, "first kiss on the moon?  Not a bad thing to be first at.”

“Yeah, I guess the moon is gay now.”  Carol couldn’t fight the smile.  Two-hundred and forty thousand miles from Earth.  She could be as gay as she liked and no one could say a god damned thing about it.

“Appears so" Maria said happily.  “Hey,” she added, poking Carol in the side, “You feeling any better?”

“Yeah,” Carol admitted.  “A little.”

“Good.”

Carol breathed deeply.  Clearly, this was what her previous stargazing attempt was missing: physical contact.

"Hey."

"Hmm?"

"That suit of yours got a radio?"

Carol smiled.  She held out her arm and Maria looked at the buttons in confusion.  Kree glyphs were so complicated they were taught using machines that directly rewrote the mind.  She punched in some commands and adjusted the frequency until she came across something in English.

She looked to Maria, who smiled at the selection.

' _Listen as the day unfolds, challenge what the future holds -_ '

"What's this?" Carol asked.

"R&B.  You missed that while you were gone."

"Ah."

' _Try and keep your head up to the sky -_ '

Carol breathed.  Whatever it was called, she liked it.

And so, they sat there together.  If watching the stars on Earth was a calming experience, on the Moon it was like staring at an oil painting. Time passed and those impossibly distant points of light remained practically motionless in the sky, not even twinkling.  No wind, no clouds.  Magnificent desolation, indeed.

“I miss anything else while I was gone?”

Maria seemed to consider this.  “Well, the Soviet Union broke up, and for a few years there was this thing called grunge… you would’ve loved it.”

Carol squinted, unsure if she was being insulted.

“But no,” she smiled, “for the most part things are about the same.”  Maria’s arm brought their shoulders together again.  “People are still people.”  The unspoken word after that was ‘unfortunately.’  They were still killing each other, still making each other miserable for no reason.  Still utterly human.

Just as human as the men and women who'd worked together to bring mankind to the Moon.

Carol frowned.  “The Kree will be back.  Humanity is going to have to grow up real fast.”

“Should be interesting.” Maria agreed, nodding.

She sighed.  “Hopefully not _too_ interesting.”

“Well, if it ever gets that interesting, you can just take me back here for some peace and quiet.  I’m sure Monica would love to see this.  Bring some water, and enough air pressure, and we can build sand-castles.”

“Is she still young enough for sand-castles?”

Maria raised an eyebrow at her.

“I’ve missed so much,” Carol said, shaking her head.

“She knows it’s not your fault.  Besides, I was just going to say that if you offered her the chance to make sandcastles on the Moon, she’d jump at it.  She worships the ground you walk on… and the space you fly through,” she added, smiling to herself.  “I mean… if you plan on sticking around?”

She smiled.  “I’ve got to help the Skrull… and find a way to stop the Kree from returning."  She let out a breath.  "But I think that this… this is my home now.”

“The Moon?” Maria asked, amused.

Carol grunted, gesturing vaguely at the blue marble hanging in the sky.  “Well, this general part of the solar system, anyway.” 

They laughed together.  It looked so fragile from so many miles away.  She wanted to take everyone on Earth and force them to look at their shared home from here.  All the wars, all the ‘isms, and all the thousands of reasons humans had for ruining each other's lives - you couldn’t see them from these seats.

"Good.  Cuz' I've missed you something terrible."

Carol hugged her shoulder.  She still had no idea how to fix everything, but for tonight at least, she would start small. 

Okay, fine.  _Relatively_ small.  She was still Carol Danvers after all.

“So…” she added after a while, grinning wickedly as her powers flared, “Has anyone been to Mars yet?”


End file.
